Today, one of my Twitter friends, Emma James, proposed a fun activity based on a cartoon. Her Tweet challenge came in the wee hours of New Year’s Day:
“We have to start 2021 with a #challenge. I love this cartoon. It reminded me of the fun I had creating this picture, so get your best #christinekeeler on for a #2021chairpose. It’s time for the maligned #nudes to break out #women #men #nude #power “
It wasn’t long before so many began to submit their New Year’s day images with the pose in place. Naturally, I didn’t want to miss out on all the fun. It took a while before I finally came up with a setting for the challenge. Now, before I show you my entry, I want to comment about the dynamics that have led to this type of activity. Covid19 has turned our world upside down in so many ways. Most places in the modern western world are in some form of lockdown or other. Most of us find ourselves behind closed doors, unable to bring others into what was once considered the safe space of home where one was king or queen. Social contact has been restricted to phone calls, sometimes gathering together virtually, and at safe distances while outdoors.
With the turning of the wheel of time to give us a New Year, nothing really has changed. Covid19 is still here and running rampant as we begin to attempt to vaccinate enough people to allow us to feel safe enough to re-engage in the world of physical presence. The challenge remaining to us is to shift our thinking from being held hostage, to one of adopting a different lens to look at our world and our lives. The challenge is to go forward and risk. For those who are naturists [nudists for some], that challenge is double-edged. As one of my long-time friends, a journalist from Montreal, Canada, Jillian Page, has stated in her recent article, A New Year, a New Community,
“We need to raise the profile of social nudism, and there may never have been a more opportune time as the world becomes more sensitive now to systemic discrimination against so many groups of people.”Jillian Page, The Naturism Community
As Emma stated in her tweet, “It’s time for the maligned nudes [naturists and nudists] to break out.” We need to claim our spot, our identity as naturists which is being co-opted by the porn industry in hopes of spreading their “tent” to include naturism as a subset of their economy. How are we going to be able to do this? Well, it can only come by each of us daring to be authentically our nude selves, promoting what we mean about who is a naturist, and what naturism is. Our images are part of that movement, that agenda.
We can’t get there hiding in a closet.